


what we make of it

by arc_kakusei



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Banter, First Kiss, Fluff, Lance is a wandmaker and Keith needs a wand, M/M, almost a HP AU but not quite, does have some HP references though, there's really no innuendo there it's just cute and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 02:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17255747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arc_kakusei/pseuds/arc_kakusei
Summary: There is one thing Keith finds - like an oceanfront wand workshop, no (okay, some) thanks to Shiro.There is one thing Lance makes - as a wandmaker, he'd give anyone three guesses as to what those would be, but the first two wouldn't count.There is one thing Keith learns - celestial wolf snot does not function as a magical catalyst.There is one thing Lance knows - celestial wolves are cute, but their owners are even more so.This is one encounter Keith and Lance have, with the opportunity for more in their future, and what they make of it.





	what we make of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redjay27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redjay27/gifts).



> For Redjay27, who has magic in all of her works and allows me to help her enhance that as her beta. Thank you so much!

Keith squinted down at the scrap of paper in his hand, attempting (not for the first time) to decipher exactly what Shiro had apparently decided passed as a map to a place Keith had never been before. He hadn’t questioned it much at the time, since it was probably unlikely for him to miss “the only oceanfront wand workshop within two days of us,” but hindsight was giving him much more insight to his situation than Shiro’s poor rendition of a map was.

At this point, Keith had been standing in front of the door to the beach cabin-looking building for a solid sixty seconds without doing much besides alternating between glaring at the door and the paper in his hand, so he shoved the already-crumpled paper back into his robe pocket and pushed the door open with impunity and not just a little resignation - he might as well just get it over with, get in and out so he could go home and cuddle Kosmo, who’d accompanied him on this day trip, on the couch. He doubted there were many other places called the Purple Lion, and if he’d somehow gotten the wrong beach hut and stomped into someone’s house, he could just leave and never see them again. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, was what Shiro insisted Keith must’ve lived by his whole life.

("Not that you’re much for apologizing either," Shiro had mused afterwards before smoothly ducking under the pillow that came flying at his head.)

The tinkling of some kind of glass greeted him along with an assault on his eyes - he knew he’d just been looking at the ocean on a bright, sunny day not a minute before, but this had to be the most blue he’d ever seen in his life. Rich tapestries in deep royal blues swathed the walls, while sky blue silks lined the cubbies where wands of comparatively diverse colors rested in stark contrast, resting out in the open air or in the many multi-colored boxes stacked neatly to fill just about every cubbyhole. Keith fingered at the well-worn handle of his own wand that was jutting out of his back pocket.

(Shiro’d always warned him against his bad habit and that he “better not come crying to me when you’re down one ass cheek and bleeding to death from your butt,” but nothing’d happened yet, and for Keith, that was good enough.)

Besides, his wand hadn’t been up for much of anything recently, let alone blasting off any particularly essential extremities, which was why Keith was here in the first place. He looked around the store, trying to acclimate his eyes to the onslaught of blue as he found more and more shades of blue in the glass beads hanging in the windows that went around the whole workshop, letting the natural sunlight pass through and throw sparkling rays onto the various workbenches scattered throughout the shop, which stretched much farther in and higher up than the outside would have indicated. The light beams mingled with the dust motes and what Keith was fairly certain were wood shavings floating in the air he’d disturbed with his presence, though the workshop was surprisingly less musty than he expected, for a place that was usually synonymous with wizened old men hunched over sticks of wood.

“Oh, I’m glad you let yourself in - sorry, I was caught up in the back for a bit. I’m Lance, the proprietor of this not-so-humble establishment.” Lance winked with an ostentatious bow, sweeping one arm to the side with a hand that brandished what looked to be three delicate wands. “What can I help you with?”

The statuesque, tanned boy that greeted him with a bright, white smile sure didn’t look like a wizened old man, but he did have some handsome-looking wands that Keith was momentarily enraptured with as Lance slotted the three wands into place in the display case Keith stood in front of. Lance himself was also quite handsome - as if Keith had needed the reminder that he was tragically and irrevocably attracted to cute boys - with a charisma that was readily apparent in the way he held and presented himself, a confidence that could only be accomplished through practice with socializing.

Practice that Keith was suddenly very aware that he’d been depriving himself of over the last few years, living out in the desert with only Kosmo and Shiro for company, as the first thing that fell out of his mouth was, “For a place called the Purple Lion, you have _way_ too much blue in here.” He immediately bit his lip afterwards and glanced off to the side, pretty sure that his neck was flushed with the bright red of mortification as his mental Shiro (read, his conscience) sighed at his lack of social grace.

Kosmo chuffed in a way that somehow seemed judgemental to Keith, and he had to fight down the urge to tell his dog to hush in front of a total stranger. He settled for giving Kosmo a side eye that clearly said “ _behave_ ” before meeting Lance’s eyes for the first time and realizing that there was nothing to apologize for because he’d only been telling the truth. Lance’s eyes held the most blue out of the entire shop and Keith would have thought that having so much more blue just out of focus in the background would wash out the electrifying color of this boy’s eyes, but there was no way Lance’s eyes wouldn’t stand out.

Keith blinked and the momentary lapse in eye contact broke him out of the split-second spell he’d been put under, compounded by the piercing laughter that erupted from Lance after a moment. “You’re definitely not the first person to say that, but normally people give me their name and about three minutes of small talk before they pass judgement on my shop.” Lance raised an eyebrow, mirth still evident even after his laughter died down as he extended his hand over the display case. “Want to work on that?”

“Keith. I can probably manage two.” Keith grasped Lance’s hand, noting subconsciously just how soft his hands were for being a wandmaker, and gave it two firm shakes before letting his hand fall to rest on Kosmo’s head. “This is Kosmo. Sorry if he sheds on your stuff.”

 _Definitely apologizing for the right things, there, Keith_. But Inner Shiro would just have to take what he could get, Keith mused as he patted Kosmo on the head twice before the celestial wolf zapped himself over to Lance’s side of the display case.

“Cuties like you two are always welcome in my shop, but don’t think I don’t see that mullet of yours either, man.” Lance wagged a finger at Keith disapprovingly before turning to Kosmo and rubbing at the wolf’s fuzzy ears. “You could give Kosmo a run for his money in the shedding department, I’m sure.”

Keith reflexively tugged at a lock of hair hanging over his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lance didn’t need to know that Shiro’d sent him off this morning with not only a shitty map but also a comment to “find a pair of scissors if you can’t find someone to actually use them on you - I might have a new arm, but I definitely still have enough fine motor control to trim that mess.” Also, did Lance just call him cute?

“I can see it’s a sensitive topic, so out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll let you off with that before you totally clam up on me.” Lance smirked goodnaturedly, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the display case while still petting Kosmo with his free hand. “You still haven’t told me what you’re here for, because I doubt you just wanted to introduce me to Kosmo here, as much as I appreciate a cutie like him.”

So it must’ve just been Kosmo Lance’d been talking about. Fair enough, Keith conceded - his companion _was_ pretty cute. He pulled his wand out from his back pocket and held it out handle-first to Lance. “It’s about this.”

Lance hummed and took the proffered wand from Keith’s grasp gently, seeming to weigh it in his hand and running his fingers along the length of wood to trace the subtle knots and curves in the smooth wood. He took a couple moments to do so before he lifted his eyes back up to meet Keith’s and said, “Okay, I know you’ve got the whole dark and mysterious thing going for you, but all you’ve done is brought me an adorable dog and a wand and I need a little more information than that if you want me to help you.”

Keith scrunched his nose. “Aren’t you a wandmaker?”

“Gee, whatever gave you that idea?” Lance rolled his eyes to accompany the humorous flatness of his voice. “Yes, I’m a wandmaker, but I’m not a fortune teller or anything. I can’t tell you exactly what the problem is just from looking at the wand, so you’ll have to try and meet me halfway, man.”

Where was Keith even supposed to begin? _Well, it all started when my mom left me and my dad with nothing to remember her by besides a celestial wolf cub -_ yeah, definitely _not_ there. After a moment of deliberation, Keith settled on saying, “My brother’s a duelist. He had an incident about a year ago that took off his arm and he said he came here to get the Magitek to -”

“Oh, you’re Shiro’s brother?” Lance cut in excitedly., a knowing glimmer entering his eyes. “So that’s why you have his old wand. I was wondering if I had to call the cops or something.”

Keith blinked. “...Yeah. No - I mean, no, you don’t have to call anyone.” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away from Lance’s seemingly renewed interest in the conversation. “I’ve been using his wand since the... incident, but it stopped working a while ago.”

“Not that hand-me-downs aren’t common in magical families - all the wands in my family have had at _least_ two different wielders - but didn’t you have your own before Shiro gave you this one?” Lance knelt down and pulled out what seemed to be a set of silver scales with a matching pair of calipers, finely wrought with the glow of enchantment visible to the naked eye, and placed them gently on top of a deep navy cushion before coming back up with an expectant look on his face, making Keith jolt slightly from realizing that he hadn’t replied to Lance’s question yet.

“I did fine without, so I never bothered.”

His reply seemed to catch Lance off-guard, making the other boy pause in his fluid motions of taking measures of all the dimensions of Keith’s wand. “You telling me you did undirected spells until only just last year? But the Garrison makes all students use their own wand for practical spellwork classes.”

“I dropped out,” Keith said, his tone sharp and causing Lance’s eyebrow to go up and Kosmo to nudge closer to his side. “They snapped it.”

Lance echoed the latter statement, turning it into a question as he shook his head in disbelief while continuing what he was doing. “That’s shitty, man. Here, bleed on this for a sec.”

After a brief pause at the casual directive Lance gave him, Keith held his hand out to Lance, who held it lightly in one of his own. A wand made of light-colored wood appeared in his other, and Lance pointed it at Keith’s hand with a murmured incantation that caused a single bead of blood to appear on Keith’s fingertip. Keith found himself lost in the feeling of Lance’s smooth, warm hands maneuvering his finger to draw a rune on the orb with his own blood and felt the calluses on Lance’s own fingers acutely as Lance gave his hand back with a quick “thanks” and a wink thrown his way. He blinked at the tingling sensation Lance’s fingers left in their wake before replying, “S’okay. After Shiro lost his arm, he figured I should use his wand since he wasn’t gonna be able to go back to dueling any time soon, so that’s why I have it now.”

“Yeah, but what this’s telling me is that it’s still Shiro’s.” Lance gestured at Keith’s wand, now sitting in a dish on the scale, lowering the scales more on its side than that of the bloodied orb that now held a miniature storm inside, the smoke comprising it a soft purple-grey that gave Keith an odd feeling of deja vu. “I’m surprised it worked for you at all, considering that it hasn’t actually accepted you as its wielder. Did Shiro actually Give it to you?”

Keith narrowed his eyes at the question. “What’re you talking about? I just told you he did.”

“No, I’m talking formally Gave it to you - there’s a whole ritual that’s involved, blood and tears and whatever that go into setting it up.” Lance waved his hands about, as if the gestures were helping describe what he was saying.

“If all it wants is blood, there was a lot of it when Shiro handed it to me while he was bleeding out.” Keith bit out the words before internally kicking himself - something about Lance just made him overshare without even thinking. Scratch that, Lance just kept him from thinking, period - everything was just an instant reaction with him.

“That’s dark,” Lance said plainly, an amused smile somehow finding its place on his face despite Keith’s evident lack of social skills. “I’ll take that as a no, then. Shiro’s intent for you to use it must’ve been enough, but I know for a fact that he came in for a final tune-up a couple weeks ago so that he could get ready to go back to dueling.” He tapped the wand, the scales not budging at all despite the added pressure. “I’m willing to bet this guy knew about that and wants to go home.”

“So I just have to give Shiro his wand back? That’s all?”

Lance hummed his affirmation. “No ritual or anything, since there wasn’t one involved in him giving it to you in the first place. What’re you gonna do after you give it back, though?”

Keith shrugged. “It’s not like I needed one in the first place. I’ll just go back to doing without.”

“Mages use magical conduits for a reason, you know.” Lance brandished his own wand in Keith’s face, the pale color of it contrasting starkly against his brown skin. “Didn’t you ever get super tired after using magic when you had to do it without a wand?”

“I probably got kicked out of the Garrison before they taught us that.”

“I mean, that’s something that - yeah.” Keith noticed Lance seem to backtrack right after he started talking, but Lance barreled on in the conversation before he could call him out on it. “Fair enough. But you really shouldn’t be doing magic without a wand if you can help it. Verbal versus nonverbal casting is one thing, but wandless magic is mostly just for show-offs who don’t know any better, and you don’t seem the type to flaunt what you’ve got.”

Keith stared at Lance blankly before saying, “So are you saying I should get a wand?”

Lance’s exasperation seemed two-fold, though Keith couldn’t quite decipher why. “Well, I mean, you _are_ in a wand shop, and I _am_ running a business here, so that’d be a safe bet in any situation, but in this particular one? Yeah, you probably should. Otherwise, you’re gonna keep exhausting yourself from doing wandless magic and turn to those pepper-up potions that’re all the rage now - not that you’d know, I guess, since you didn’t stay in the Garrison, but those things are hella popular -  but you’re gonna give yourself a magical ulcer in the end and it’ll cost you more than a wand would now.”

Under the barrage of Lance’s tirade-slash-sales-pitch, the only thing Keith could process and reply to ended up being, “What makes it a magical ulcer?”

“I donno the specifics - you can probably ask Allura, but I think it’s something like the residual magic from the potions doesn’t burn itself out completely and you end up having magically painful shits for weeks.”

Keith didn’t even know how to respond to that, so he turned back to the matter at hand and said, “Just - give me a wand, then.”

Lance tutted, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking the gold-embroidered sleeves of his blue robes back. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘the wand chooses the wizard’? We’ll have to see if any of them like you, first.”

Keith slumped to rest his elbows on the display case, only sparing a passing thought for Lance who would probably have to wipe the smudges off it later. “Bring it on, then.”

At that, Lance’s gaze sharpened, those blue, blue eyes appraising him and making Keith feel like he should’ve been standing like he had a rod in his spine. As it were, Keith could only watch, motionless as Lance’s eyes searched his face, his eyes for something he wasn’t sure he had to offer.

Keith hadn’t held eye contact with someone for this long since Shiro had lost his arm, and suddenly he was thrown back in his memory to that day, where he’d gripped Shiro’s shoulders, his left hand white from his death grip on the robes fluttering mockingly in the pool of blood where Shiro’s arm should have been, Sendak bringing his broom down in lazy spirals without a hint of remorse for what he had wrought upon Shiro, the referee’s ruling that Sendak would never be allowed in an Alliance-sanctioned duel again, but that didn’t _matter_ , what about _Shiro_ , who would never duel again because he _couldn’t_ -

But then he could, and would, and was planning on it - thanks to the boy in front of him, to Lance, who was right up in Keith’s face now that he was paying attention to his surroundings instead of getting lost in his memories. Lance had brought up one hand as if to touch Keith’s face and snap him out of his self-imposed trance, but he must’ve seen the awareness come back to Keith’s eyes, because he leaned back, up and out of Keith’s space and interlocked his fingers, as if to stop himself from attempting to reach out again.

“Lost you there for a moment, everything okay?” Lance’s lighthearted tone did little to mask his evident worry, which was touching, considering that they’d just met not ten minutes ago.

“Yeah, just - stuff.” Keith waved his hand, more to wave away his shoddy excuse for an explanation, and straightened up from leaning on the display case. He gave Kosmo a decisive head pat, more to steel himself than anything else, before meeting Lance’s gaze once more. “What kind of wand am I looking for?”

“Is looking for you, you mean.” Lance made finger guns at him and Keith couldn’t not groan aloud at the gesture.

“You’re really sticking with that.” It was a deadpan statement that almost sounded like a question, except that Keith already knew that battle was lost before it had even begun.

“Only because it’s true,” Lance stated in a singsong tone as he vaulted himself over the display case to stand next to one of the many shelves containing velvet-covered boxes in a myriad of colors, with no pattern that Keith could immediately discern. To him, it seemed like Lance picked boxes out at random, pinching the ribbons that hung out of them to pull them neatly from underneath and between their brethren. He hummed as he went, a gentle yet lively tune that seemed to be in time with his movements between the shelves. Keith felt as though Lance was dancing around the shop, spelling the boxes to stack themselves in front of Keith while he continued on his circuit around the shelves, intermittently fading in and out of Keith’s line of sight as he traversed the shop.

It was mesmerizing to watch, even if he didn’t understand the rhyme or reason to Lance’s decisions. After a few bars of whatever melody Lance was humming, there were several boxes in front of Keith and Lance had thrown himself back behind the display case to open the first one with no small amount of pomp and circumstance. He slid the wand out of its box by pulling on the ribbon and lifted it from the orange silk-lined interior with decisive care before holding the handle out to Keith.

“Eight-and-a-half inches, dogwood, faerie antennae. Dense, but strong.”

Keith had a feeling the last comment was targeted at him, but ignored it in favor of wrapping his hand around the ornately carved handle. He expected it to sit uncomfortably in his hand, but surprisingly, the carved wooden leaves and flowers seemed to bend under the weight of his palm like real plants would have.

He looked at Lance, who shrugged and said, “Just give it a swish or flick or whatever. _I’m_ not picky.”

Keith went with the latter, managing to flick the wand just once in front of him before he had to drop the wand with a yelp, bleeding for the second time that day due to the thorns that’d instantaneously appeared from the handle of the wand.

“So dramatic,” Lance cooed at the wand, dropping it back into the box and sending it back to its place in the shelves with a flick of his own wand before turning to Keith and inspecting his hand. “She did a number on you, didn’t she?”

“Do the wands know I’m gay?” Keith blurted and damn, didn’t _that_ make him want to slap himself in the face with his bloody hand. Before he could, it was quickly healed and cleaned up with a few waves of Lance’s wand.

Lance chortled afterwards, already unwrapping the second wand from its red velvet covering. “I think I can safely say I don’t make homophobic wands, regardless of what gender they have. They’d all revolt against me first if I did. Here - eleven-and-three-quarters, spruce, amphisbaena skin.”

Keith took the wand, noting that not only did the handle sport delicate scales akin to that of a snake, it also featured two colors of wood winding up towards the tip of the wand, lending the entire wand an even greater illusion of being a sinuous, living, two-headed snake. He went for another flick before all but throwing the wand in Lance’s face because why the _fuck_ did Lance make wands that were out to kill him? The wand truly had turned into a wooden, two-headed snake, resulting in four beady eyes staring him down and a compounded hissing noise that made his instinct for self-preservation kick in.

“What the actual hell, Lance,” Keith gritted out, feeling the adrenaline leech out of his muscles as Lance heedlessly picked up the wand from where Keith had dropped it and slid it back into the box, cutting off its hissing right after.

“Guess you don’t have a good sense of humor - spruce normally appreciates that in a person,” Lance mused, third wand in hand after pushing the black velvet of the box aside. “Okay, last one before I call in the cavalry. Ten inches, red oak, almiraj horn.”

These wands were giving Keith a lot of shit for only having just met him, he couldn’t help but think, as he took the wand with a now-warranted amount of caution. It was the most unassuming of the three he’d seen so far - its personality seemed to be rooted mostly in its color, a vibrant red-brown that stood out against the black of the velvet now atop the display case. Keith’s pride didn’t allow him to be completely cowed by a seemingly sentient piece of wood, even after getting stung twice with the last two, and he gave it a firm flick, thinking at the wand, _It’s me - Keith - I am your wielder._

Though he’d never admit that aloud to anyone, ever, for as long as he lived.

Despite his best efforts at telepathy, the wand didn’t seem to react, and he set it down for Lance to wrap back up. He scratched idly at the edges of the gloves he wore as Lance sent the third box on its way, but the itch wasn’t relieved by such a simple effort. He looked down at his hand and his brow furrowed at the fresh hell the last wand had brought down on him.

“The spruce judged you for not having a sense of humor and now the red oak is pranking you by pretending to be poison oak - you gotta admit, that’s pretty hilarious.” Lance laughed more than enough for the both of them at the red rash rapidly developing on Keith’s exposed fingers, and never before had Keith been so glad to have made a habit of wearing his gloves, because even only his fingers were on _fire_.

“That doesn’t even make sense, Lance, what the hell -” Keith ripped his gloves off and presented his hand to Lance to demand healing.

Lance shushed him, his own wand in hand yet again. “You’ll be fine, that’s why you’re here with adult supervision.”

“Who’re you calling an adult?”

“I know I’m older than you are - Shiro always likes to brag about you whenever he comes to visit and your birthday came up last time.”

Keith groaned again - why did this visit have to be so painful in so many ways? At least Lance was proving extremely adept at healing charms - the tip of his wand traced the afflicted areas, glowing with soothing blue light, and the rash seemed to accelerate through its life cycle as a result, turning an even brighter red before slowly fading to reveal unmarked pale skin beneath it.

“What’s up with that tan, though?” Lance snickered, prodding at the line that demarcated Keith’s slightly less pale fingers from his paler palms. Before Keith could defend himself, Lance let him go in favor of stretching his hand out to Kosmo, who sniffed his palm before licking it and tilting his head questioningly. “Hey buddy, you wanna pick out a wand for Keith? It’s already been three strikes for me, so you’re our last hope.”

Keith was tempted to object - was he really going to let a dog pick out his wand for him? But he knew that Kosmo wasn’t just a dog - he’d been Keith’s companion for so many of the past years, if there were anyone that could pick out a wand for him… well, it’d be a toss-up between Shiro and Kosmo, really. Keith patted Kosmo on the head, the ticklish sensation of the fur on Kosmo’s head unfamiliar without his gloves on, and hefted the wolf up, grunting as he did so. He sure wasn’t a puppy anymore, that was for sure.

There were four boxes left on the display case, all nondescript in their simple black exterior. There was no way to tell them apart from the outside, as far as Keith could tell, but he’d never figured out if Kosmo was colorblind, so maybe it wouldn’t matter anyway. Kosmo was also a magical creature, so there was probably more merit than it would seem at first glance to letting his companion pick his wand for him.

Kosmo sniffed at each box with distinct care, his tail brushing against Keith’s thighs in a rhythmic, somewhat soothing pattern. With the amount of deliberation Kosmo seemed to be putting into his choice, Lance’s faith in the wolf didn’t seem to be misplaced, and Keith was almost sorry for even considering doubting his canine companion, even as his arms started to shake from supporting Kosmo’s weight for such an extended period of time.

Just as Keith thought he would have to drop Kosmo and his wand would be lost to him forever, Kosmo sneezed violently, shaking himself out of Keith’s grip after showering the box he’d been sniffing at in a speckle of shimmering mucus. The box seemed to recoil at the disgrace, turning violet and embroidering itself with golden thread as if to distance itself from what had just occurred.

“I think we have a winner,” Lance managed to say with a straight face before he completely lost it, burying his face in his elbow and laughing wholeheartedly. The flash of his white teeth against the dark blue of his robe stunned Keith as much as the full-bodied laughter erupting from his own chest did. He could hardly remember the last time he’d enjoyed someone’s company this much - not that he didn’t appreciate Shiro, but he’d almost started to take Shiro’s presence for granted, because Shiro was just that reliable, that much of a constant in his life, even when Shiro had lost his arm, when Keith was the one who was supposed to support him. Lance was a variable, a new experience, an opportunity, if only Keith could reach out and _take it_ -

As it were, all he did was take the handsome, indigo wand that Lance offered him from the box, holding it gingerly - he didn’t doubt Kosmo’s abilities, per se, but he had to admit, all the wolf had done was sneeze on it. Far be it from him to read too much into it.

“Eleven-and-a-quarter, blackthorn, chimera fang.” Lance recited the pertinent information to Keith with a quiet reverence that underscored just how boisterous the boy had been moments prior. “That was one of the first wands I ever made, and if you couldn’t tell, the materials made it a huge pain in the ass to make.”

The materials also made for a decent part of Keith’s trepidation - he’d been pushed into a blackthorn bush once as a child, and the silvery scars were still evident on his arms and legs if he looked closely enough. He’d never had the misfortune to encounter a chimera in person, but he didn’t doubt that its deadly reputation would lend itself towards being an effective wand core.

“It’s not infused with Kosmo’s snot or anything, right?”

“Ew, man, no.” Lance’s expression of mild disdain at the idea was overwritten by his smile that grew larger as Lance drew closer to Keith, leaning in on his elbows. “I have a feeling this is going to be the one, though.”

Lance’s confidence in Kosmo - or maybe Keith could just accept that it was directed towards him, now - gave Keith the small mental push he hadn’t known he needed to grip the wand more firmly and lift the wand into the air. He could immediately feel the acceptance from the wand radiate down from his hand through his arm to settle in his chest, and Keith imagined that this was what it must feel like seeing a long-lost friend for the first time in ages. He could feel tears welling up and looked up at the wand to try and stem the flow before it started, noting the shower of purple sparks it threw out. The sparks fell and shimmered around him and Lance, and the color struck him again with that particular sense of deja vu he’d felt earlier when Lance had used his blood to draw on that orb.

When Keith’s eyes were at an acceptable level of dryness to make eye contact with Lance again, he did so while lowering the wand and asked, “Does that color mean anything?”

Lance tracked the movement of Keith’s wand with his eyes and watched the last of the sparks fade out into wisps of harmless smoke before he met Keith’s gaze with his own, and Keith once again felt pinned under the intensity with which Lance appraised him. Lance held out his hand and Keith only barely resisted the urge to place his own in it, to let his body be pulled over to Lance’s side just as his mind surely was, but instead he handed over the blackthorn wand, already missing its weight in his hands. The warmth of his new companion - because he recognized it now, the feeling in his chest similar to that of Kosmo when they cuddled on the couch, to that of Shiro’s arm across his shoulders - stayed with him, and Keith let his hand fall back to Kosmo’s head, patting the wolf gently while conveying gratitude as best he could.

“Some wandmakers say it’s the color of your soul. There’re some diviners out there that claim they can tell your future with magichromaticity, but I’ve never put much stock in them. I think your future is what you make of it, you know? Kind of like how wands are what you make of them and what you make them from. They both matter.” Lance toyed with the wand, tipping it this way and that and running his fingers along the spines that’d evidently been sanded down with care to give the wand a wavy yet jagged appearance, but he never broke eye contact with Keith, not even to blink, refusing to give Keith any respite from the blazing emotion in Lance’s gaze. “I don’t know if the color itself really means anything, but I _do_ know that it’s exactly the color of your eyes.”

Stars, but Lance was _right_. Keith had never paid his reflection much attention, but he knew he’d seen that color somewhere before. That feeling of abstract familiarity had a reason for existing, and Keith wasn’t sure why it was so important that he knew it, why it was so important that Lance had been the one to tell him, but he felt the inherent rightness of the whole situation fill his chest with something that was as of yet unnameable but just as familiar as the color of his own eyes.

Whatever feeling it was, Keith found himself powerless to resist its magic as he slowly reached out his hand to hook his fingers into the ties that held Lance’s robes closed near his neck. The fabric bunched in his fist and he used it to drag Lance down to him, to cradle Lance’s head with his other hand. His fingers trailed down the curve of Lance’s head to tangle in the soft, brown hair at the nape of Lance’s neck and brought their faces ever closer to each other, so that he could see his own eyes reflected in Lance’s, the color Lance had spoken of with such conviction overpowered by the black of Lance’s pupils surrounded by a ring of that scorching blue.

He heard the gentle clack of Lance setting down his wand, unable to see it with his field of vision, much as his mind had been for most of their encounter, filled with Lance and nothing else. Lance’s gaze fell with his eyelids as it traced a path from Keith’s eyes to his lips, his blown pupils now half-moons with an arc of blue tracing the edge. Keith felt himself on a precipice as well, though that was in part perhaps due to his rising up on his toes to stretch himself over the display case between them. He could so very nearly feel the words that Lance mouthed soundlessly with his own lips, but instead felt himself in the gentle grip of Lance’s magic as it swept him off his feet and lifted him out of Lance’s reach for a moment, only to set him down on the display case to look down at Lance and his dazzlingly endeared smile from above.

Lance’s hands came up to trace over the path his eyes had blazed, his fingertips brushing over Keith’s eyelids, his thumb sweeping across his cheekbone, his palm warming his face, his lips a breath away from Keith’s. Keith loosened his grip on Lance’s robes to rest his arms on Lance’s shoulders, while Lance’s hands abandoned Keith’s face to trail their way down to wrap around Keith’s waist. Keith took in all that Lance had to offer from his proximity alone, which was almost feeling like more than he could handle, and as if he could sense Keith’s plight, Lance simply waited.

It was an unspoken _May I?_ in the way that Lance froze on the same precipice Keith had found himself on earlier.

It was a soundless _Can we?_ in the way that Keith followed Lance’s arm with his hand until he found Lance’s hand on his waist and wove their fingers together.

It was a unvoiced, unanimous _Please,_ in the way that they met in the middle of the minute space remaining between them, their lips slotting together in a sweet, chaste kiss that tasted of tea and the sea, of the future and what it would be made of and what they would make of it, the scent mingling in their shared breath, in the darkness of their closed eyes.

Keith felt Lance pull away and followed his retreat, if only to prolong the kiss for just one more moment, before he opened his eyes and saw a pretty red blush beneath the translucent freckles Keith could now make out on Lance’s cheeks.

“Was that okay?” Lance asked with an introversion that Keith couldn’t call uncharacteristic, simply unfamiliar in the Lance he’d come to know with so little time.

The simplest answer to Keith was also the most rewarding, in his opinion, as he used their joined hands to pull Lance back towards him and press their lips together once more. He felt the tension Lance had drawn up in the span of a three-word question drain away from him with a wordless answer and felt satisfied enough to trace the seam of Lance’s lips with the tip of his tongue before drawing away to admire the contrasting colors on Lance’s face - the shine of his brown lips, the even brighter red of his cheeks, the warmth of his blue eyes.

“What was that about wandless magic and show-offs, again?” Keith couldn’t help but tease Lance, to see if he could add any more vividness to the colors on Lance’s face.

“Hey, I said ‘mostly.’” Lance huffed with a smirk that couldn’t quite win the battle against the smile taking over his face. “I will say, this isn’t how I normally make matches, but I gave you the cute-dog-and-his-cuter-boy discount.”

Keith rolled his eyes, finding a mirror of that smile on his own face and in Lance’s eyes once more. “Don’t let me put you out of business.”

“How about a date? If you leave Kosmo at home with Shiro, I’ll let that count as the down payment.”

“Deal.”

As they laughed and brought their lips together once more, Keith figured he could content himself with being the one source of purple in the Purple Lion.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, Happy New Year, and hello VLD fandom! This is my first work for the series, and I just really wanted to put something out there for myself to enjoy writing and for others to enjoy reading. 
> 
> This turned out much sweeter than I thought it would, if you can't tell by the huge tonal shift between the beginning and the end, but I liked the result, and I hope you do too!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought - I'd be delighted if you did!


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